Sup folks. This guide is meant for everyone. I'm going to try to work in an order that is initially suited for someone who hasn't even started his/her Stalker Tank yet, and it will slowly progress into the more advanced stuff meant for players who are already progressing in Datascape. It seems pretty long, but I assure you it is pruned to the absolute minimums. That said, feel free to take it in bites.

Before I get going here, I'd like to note that this guide is not going to be perfect. It was written fairly quickly, and I'm not one to babysit a guide. There is a very high chance that it will get out-of-date quickly, and that I will fail to update it when it does get kooky.Last updated on Nov 7, 2016.

Single Armor runes from different sets in every other slot. You should have a lot of 1/3s. Why? The 1/3 set bonus is the best bonus. I know, right?

You could also run Gleaming 3/3 if you like. It's not bad with Nano Virus.

Notes:

Every build I run has Bloodthirst 3.Suit Power generation is somewhat of a problem in builds that don't have Nano Virus 4, or punish. It's not so much a threat problem as it is a BT/Disk uptime problem.

Razor Disk 4's buff applies before it deals damage, which is super helpful.The value of deflect (on gear, buffs) has changed in kindof a weird way with the stance change. The mitigation value of deflect is down, but the survivability factor on it is up. It reduces less total damage than it used to, but it's a more reliable stat. It's position on our stat heirarchy remains unchanged.

Health vs Armor. I'm not changing it in the rest of the guide, but this is a debate that needs reopened. There are a lot of high damage mechanics in RMT that are penetrating armor. Health may be the better option now, but it is a real strain on your healers. There isn't that much we can do to move it around, only about 10k worth, but still.

Crit Mit cap for RMT is 89.

Recently discovered that Menace is now multiplying our threat instead of adding to it. It's by far better than Enrage now.

Variants:You're gonna find yourself moving skills around a fair bit with this new spec, since the LAS is really tight now. I make a few swaps in the following situations.

Pounce: I use it for Engineers in place of Reaver so I can cross platforms without using the safespot, it's much safer for the raid. Replace what you have to for it when you need it.

Nano Dart: Is outright better than Razor Disk, IF you don't need the Deflect debuff or are unable to use it reliably. I use Dart on Mordechai when I'm kiting.

Punish: Actually somewhat usable. I haven't found a need for it yet, but it can be used to free up Nano Virus to be used non-rotationally as a defensive cooldown, and simultaneously free up 8 Ability Points for Stead 4, Frenzy 8, w/e you like.

Frenzy 8: Still good. It's a LOT of damage reduction. If you can manage threat just fine without Razor Disk 4, run it.

Summary of Drop 6 (F2P) Changes

Raid Bosses hit much, much harder. On the order of 1.5-2.5x. Survival is now a much larger concern.

Stalkers are no longer the obvious 'Fat Tank'.

Very little has changed with regards to AMP and Ability selection, only exceptions being Bloodthrist and Amp Spike are viable now, and Prep has taken a massive nerf.

Threat is considerably easier.

The new rune system requires a fair bit of learning, but has surprisingly low impact on your survivability.

The Waller T8 Class Set from GA facilitates an extreme change in rotation in combination with Unfair Advantage.

Should I Roll Stalker Tank?*It's worth noting that I initially had this section in when there were larger differences between the Tanks. Current Tank design is pretty homogeneous, so the choices between the Tanks are somewhat superficial. I've kept in what little does separate them.

Pros

Capable of running T8 Bloodthrist on the fights that facilitate it (your Stalker DPS will love you)

The base Deflect on Stalkers synergizes very well with some of the new, fast recharge Shields.

Extremely mobile.

Rotation has some elements of nuance.

Unlike Engineers, we have a good blanket Taunt.

Cons

Holding threat can be difficult in certain situations. Several bosses require moved or kited, and keeping threat through that can be a pain.

LAS is very inflexible. You will be stuck unable to use a lot of skills you really want for certain fights.

Lack of control over your own survivability. Our Defensive CDs are shorter than Engis/Warriors, but they are much less impactful.

Leveling Up

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Do not attempt to level with support skills, it is slow, and vastly inferior. Don't even attempt to do early Dungeons with support skills. Level with Assault Power. If you want to tank a dungeon, continue to use AP skills, just do it in Tank Stance (Nano Skin: Evasive). Maybe put on Steadfast for survival (if you have it yet).While leveling, I highly recommend that you get some familiarity with the entire Stalker skillset. It may save you some grief when you start Dungeons at 50. It is also wise to pick up as many AMP Skills as you can while leveling, and start building a Support Power (Tech, Insight) gearset at around 45.

I use Razor Storm in 95% of scenarios. It's needed for adds, and most tankswaps. Helps a lot with threat in general.

I use Pounce in 90% of scenarios. It only gets swapped out if I need interrupts.

I use Reaver in 80% of scenarios. It's needed to reduce raid damage taken on most fights.

I use Amplification Spike in 20% of scenarios. It does help survivability, but the cooldown is very long, and it really cuts into the LAS/AMPs.

I use Stagger/Collapse in 20% of scenarios. Stalker Tanks lose more than any other class when we have to run interrupts. Losing Razor Storm, Pounce, or Reaver is a serious loss to the raid. I only run interrupts in the most extreme of scenarios. Dungeons, Trash Mobs, Kuralak, Ohmna, System Daemons, Gloomclaw. That's about it.

I use Analyze Weakness/Preparation in 5% of scenarios. Maximum possible TPS, but the number of fights with no need for Taunt or Kicks are few.

I use Stim Drone in 5% of scenarios. CC Break is useful sometimes, but after having no CC break for so long I've learned not to rely on it.

I use Razor Disk in 5% of scenarios. Only when our Espers don't show up.

Boss Crit Multis are 153.17% for Vets, 165.36% for GA, 184.2% of Early DS, and 187.0% for Late DS.

Raid Bosses crit 20% of the time, Dungeon 10%, and Open World 5%.

Item Level tends to be the only factor worth noting. The Armor and Health on an item trump all its secondary stats.

Percent increases to stats are also subject to the same Diminishing Returns that Ratings are. This is particularly important with regards to Deflect and the Frenzy T8. If you have 30% Deflect before, the 12% Deflect from Frenzy will not take you to 42%, rather something around 38%.

Understanding the Stats:

Defensive:

Crit Mit - Get to cap, Priority #1. Crits that deal real damage will wipe you off the face of the earth.

Armor - Armor is still our top dog. The golden child of stats. It is the only stat that reliably increases time-to-live and reduces strain on healers simultaneously.

Health - Health gives the greatest boost to time-to-live out there. If you're getting bursted down, this is what you need. That said, it also costs the healers great strain.

Deflect - Converts at 666:1%. Soft Caps at 30%. Decent Stat, but mostly due to it's synergy with fast-regen Shields.

Glance - Converts at 172:1%. Improved greatly from it's old values, but retains it's position on Stalker stat priority. Glance rolls mutiplicatively, AFTER Deflect. If you've got 30% Deflect and 30% Glance, you will Deflect 3/10 attacks, but only Glance ~2/10. Better only than the Threat stats.

Threat:

Support Power - Approx 75% of the damage on a Support Skill comes from SP. Not that you can 'choose' to get SP on any slot. Just a random factoid.

Strikethrough - Shouldn't need to get it. Better than Multi Hit, but worth less than all Defensive Stats, including Glance.

After that, the stats you want are the following, in order. (This is for Secondary Stats on Gear, NOT Runes)

Crit MitDeflectGlanceStrikethroughMulti Hit

Ideal Runes are Earth/Life/Air/Logic. Water and Fire are worthless, either reroll them or put a Fusion rune in them.

ShieldsDrop 6 has made a dramatic change in Shields, and there are some VERY important things to note.

#1 - Higher Shield %Mitigation is NOT better. You want the lowest possible percentage in most scenarios. The reason for this is a failure by most people to understand the way that shields actually behave. You need to treat your Shield not like health, but rather like a damage mitigation buff. A 67.5% mitigation shield will cause the first auto you take to hit for almost nothing, but the following hits will destroy you. You want a low mitigation Shield, like 25%, because it will actually last, and give the healers the most consistent incoming damage on you.

#2 - Fast Recharge Delay and Rate are very valuable. Most bosses swing on a 2s timer. The shields with a 2.7 Delay and 20% Recharge Rate will completely fill themselves every single time you deflect, or the mobs cast something.

#3 - Completely ignore #1 and #2 if you have a dedicated Medic healer. In that situation, just wear the largest, spongiest shield possible, as they will want to be the ones filling it.

#4 - Save your old Shields. Different Shields are better in different situations. Fights with constant DoT damage will make Fast Recharge worthless. Bosses that hit for low damage may make High Mit + Fast Charge shields the best, despite their low total shield. Bosses that hit like trucks may do the exact opposite. Be prepared to use a tailored shield for new boss fights.

Runes

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It is worth noting, before I start, that in the current state of Wildstar, Tanks scale VERY poorly. DPS see more than double the impact from a Rune than you will as a Tank. Bear in mind that the difference between perfect runes and near-perfect runes, for Tanks, is marginal. Do not worry about dumping all your plat (or lol, real money) on attempting to reroll sockets in temporary gear.

The new rune sets seem very complicated at first, but are actually very simple. Let me break it down.

Rune Sets can only be completed within a Single Item. (3x Alleviation in Chest and 3x Alleviation in Helm do not make 6x, they make 2 separate 3x's)

You cannot have Duplicate Runes of a Set in an item. If you want to make 8pc, you either need to use 4 Different Exceptional (2x) Runes, or 3 Different Exceptional and 2 Different Standard (1x) Runes. You will not be allowed to use 3x Exceptional Alleviation Runes of Armor, for example.

There are Two Class Rune Sets for Stalker. You want both of them, when you can get them.

There are 5 Fusion slots. Fusion runes can be put in any socket type, but no more than one per corresponding item slot. I'll list the best Fusions known for each slot. Fusions are much better than normal runes, and save money on rerolls.

Weapon: Venom. Crafted.

Helmet: Hardy/Bulwark. Crafted.

Chest: Mountain. Vendor/AH.

Gloves: Menace. Also, you should keep an alternate pair of gloves with Disabler in them, it is incredibly valuable for interrupt fights.

Now, I cannot tell you exactly what to put where because I didn't have exactly perfect gear on the PTR, and the situation will be different based on your gear level and the stat situation you are in. I can only give general rules to try and help.

#1 - Use Fusions in every slot you can.#2 - Get Crit Mit Capped.#3 - Rune the class sets when you get them. Ideally in your Shoulders or Pants.Run Waller with either 4x Exceptionals or 3x Exceptionals and 2x Standards (Earth/Earth/Life/Life/Logic)Run Furor with 3x Exceptionals and 2x Standards (Air/Life/Logic/Life/Air)#4 - 6x Alleviation (Earth/Life/Logic) and 2x Defiance (Earth) is best in Weapon/Head/Chest/Gloves/Boots#5 - 6x Alleviation and 4x Elusion is best in Shoulder/Pants, but only if you're not using a Class Set there.#6 - If it's not Best-in-Slot, don't put BiS runes in it. That shit is expensive.

GadgetsI'm not sure right now exactly what Gadgets are 100% best, as there's no Database running right now, but generally speaking you're going to want to run the gadgets that Heal or give Absorbs. Many Armor/Deflect gadgets only work out to be a 3-4% damage reduction for their duration.

Consumables:Whatever floats your boat, man. Just be speed flasked.

Rotation

The Stalker Tank rotation should, for a new player, go through several stages of evolution as you become more capable of executing the nuances without making other execution mistakes.

In Dungeons/GA

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Everything in the Stalker Tank rotation centers around Frenzy. You may have noticed that these builds do not have Whiplash. No builder, or time filler. The rotation is based upon sustaining the Frenzy SP requirements.

#1 - Always use Decimate on cooldown. Spam that shit. Decimate's SP gain and GCD duration are the biggest component to you being able to sustain Frenzy. Tip: Deci doesn't need to hit a target to generate SP and the buff.

#2 - Nano Virus should be used as often as possible, but be careful to make sure you hit as many targets with it as possible. The T4 regens extra suit power per target hit. A 3-target NV will return 60 SP, where a 1-target will only return 20.

#3 - Steadfast and Punish should be used as often as possible, but there is a caveat. You need to make sure you are using them at the correct point in your Frenzy cast. I'll explain.

Frenzy has a 1 second GCD. It ticks at the 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 marks, and drains Suit Power at each tick point. If you were to cast Frenzy at 12 Suit Power, it would tick once instantly, then disable, and you would be stuck on GCD doing nothing for a full second.

The same rule applies with Steadfast and Punish. You do not want to interrupt Frenzy with Steadfast and Punish until Frenzy has passed the 1.0 mark on its cast, or you're going to incur downtime.

This is not a problem with Deci and Nano Virus because they're on the GCD. You can spam them to your hearts content, and you will be fine.

#4 - The AMP Unfair Advantage (Hybrid A/S) is a tricky dick. It will reduce the cost of Frenzy by 8 for EVERY tick of the entire cast. It is the final piece of your Suit-Power-sustaining puzzle. Just stealth, and let a full Frenzy cast roll out. The best way to make it work is to stealth immediately after Decimate. The GCD of Decimate is your safe haven, anywhere else and it's likely to fail.

For Datascape

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#5 - Assuming you have the above 4 things down, you can start optimizing your rotation to increase your Frenzy counts by manipulating your cast bar. Please note that this is a level of execution that is completely unnecessary for anyone not completely fluid with the rotation, and your attention would be better spent staying out of red stuff.

Frenzy's tooltip implies that it caps out at 2 ticks per second, but because of the instant tick the theoretical upper limit is actually 3 ticks per second. You will never actually get 3, but you can start pushing to 2.5, or even higher depending on how good you get with it.

How? FIrst, you should always be using 'Hold to Continue Casting'. It may be weird for some of you (it was for me). But it's optimal, and for this, necessary. You're going to want to have Frenzy held down all the time. Yes, ALL the time.

Tap Steadfast and Punish to interrupt your Frenzy cast as close to 1.1 as possible. With Frenzy held down, it begin ticking again instantly. Do the same thing with Nano Virus and Decimate (this will mean not spamming them, or they're pretty much guaranteed to eat your 3rd Frenzy ticks).

Why 1.1 instead of 1.01, or 1.00 flat? Because the combat timer is irregular. The game will sometimes preform the 3rd Frenzy tick at 1.06 seconds, or 0.97 seconds. You need to allow sufficient room for the game to put the 3rd Frenzy tick in. That's the trickiest part of this whole thing, finding the exact point on your cast bar where the third tick of Frenzy goes out without cutting too short. I spent a great deal of time testing this with Wildstar logs, and even after a few hours I didn't have anything truly perfect.

Variants:

Waller 8/8: You will be using Innate nearly once every 8 seconds. You will no longer need to use Nano Virus as a filler to sustain your rotation. Even Punish is negotiable here. Deci will no longer be your only option for getting into stealth safely, safest way in otherwise tends to be a Jump ->StealthFrenzy, just make sure you're off the GCD when you do so.

UI:

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#1 - Threat Plates, get them. I can't stress enough how valuable a tool it is to be able to tell which mobs are loose, the instant they become loose. Mobs will change targets a solid second before they move, and 2-3 seconds before their first DPS-slaying autoattack. I run Minimalist Nameplates at the moment, HP bars of mobs I am tanking are Red, and HP bars of mobs I have lost threat on are Orange. There are several options for Nameplates that show when a mob is or isn't attacking you, but you need one.

#2 - Get a good threatmeter, and you need to understand the subtleties of how the threat table works. All threat meters read the threat table directly. If the threat meter is acting weird, threat itself is acting weird. You are responsible for it, and there are a couple things you need to know.

#1 - Whoever is on top of the threat table is the TARGET.#2 - If you generate 110% of the threat# of TARGET, you become the new TARGET.#3 - Taunts cause you to become TARGET for [x] seconds. At the end of the Taunt, the threat table returns to standard rules.#4 - Intimidate causes a Taunt, but it also causes you to duplicate the threat of TARGET, not the top threat#.

This causes some very stupid crap. If you Intimidate when Taunt is on the mob, you can put your threat in the dumpster. Also, when you Taunt, do not expect the mob to go back to its previous target. If you are within 9% of the top threat#, it will stay on you. If someone else has passed the previous TARGET when Taunt ends, it will go to them. You are going to need to be aware of Taunts/Intimidates.

#3 - Something to track everyones taunts. Aura Mastery is what I use. Make it big.

Gameplay:

I'm going to cover this chronologically. If you're in Dungeons, master the early stuff first. Jumping ahead to more advanced raid-related stuff is just going to make you shitty. Focus on Threat for Dungeons, Positioning for GA, and Survivability/Taunts for DS.

Dungeons

You need to hold threat before you think about anything else.

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Stalker Threat is not as difficult as it once was, but it's still your first priority in Dungeons. There may be DPS in there that outgear you, and holding off them will be a pain.

First, get the right mindset. You must play aggressively. The first person to hit every single mob needs to be you. If you become that tank that has to say shit like 'omg stupid DPS, wait for me to pull', you are moving too slowly. Obviously, don't go pulling beyond the groups limits, but you need to be faster than the DPS.

I've almost always run Pounce for this reason. It's a lot easier to get early threat when you can stay 1-2 seconds physically ahead of your group. The same thing applies with Razor Storm. I use it on pulls to help me position the mobs quickly, and ensure I hold threat in the first few seconds where DPS have a very strong advantage on my threat.

You shouldn't need to worry too much about personal survability in dungeons. That needs to be the healers responsiblity. Just keep the mobs clumped, keep them under control. Drag melee mobs on top of ranged mobs, and CC everything you can. The simplest way to make dungeons easy is to interrupt everything. Pushing Steadfast may deflect one of the 1-2 attacks that you take per second, but landing a Stagger will reduce the damage taken by the entire group by 100% for 2.5 seconds.

If casts are going off, you may need to ask your DPS to do their goddamn job. But nicely. If you are mean to them, they may swap to Tank Stance and embarrass your puny threat generation.

Raids

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Raid Tanking is a one-man show, even if you're not the only tank. I know that sounds stupid, but stick with me for a bit. What I mean is, there is nobody to hold your hand. DPS and Healers tend to have a safety net with eachother, they will share advice and strategy, and they can play follow-the-leader if someone comes up with a better method. You don't have this luxury. Your strategy, your innovations, your execution, it all needs to come from your own noodle.

You need to be able to execute as well as the DPS, coordinate and communicate as well as the healers, you need to be able to make judgement calls, in real time, and you need to be able to do it without help. And honestly, if you can't handle that, don't tank. Tanking is a huge point-of-failure for a raid, and if you are fucking it up, the raid will be weaker in ways that the vast majority of people (including the Raid Leader) may not even realize. Do it right though, and you will be the guy who makes the difference. It's a lot of responsibility, but it's worth taking.

You can be an okay tank by sticking to the basic principles of DPSing. Maintain a good rotation, and stay out of red stuff. Though on a different scale. If a DPS misrotates, he will lose a portion of his DPS. If you misrotate (especially on the opener), a DPS will die. If a DPS stands in red stuff, one guy dies. If you stand in the wrong red stuff, everybody dies.

Being a great tank though, is often subtle. Positioning is one of the biggest aspects of this. Good positioning will have a huge impact on DPS and execution, and bad positioning will cause wipes.

First thing, you need to work out the optimal positioning for whatever you're tanking. There can be a huge number of factors at play. X-89 is a great example for my purposes.

Back when power creep hadn't turned X-89 into a joke, the tank had massive control over a raids success. X-89 needed to be kept a moderate distance from the edge, around 2 hex. Far enough that the raid was never at risk of having to knock out a platform that was in use, but close enough that bomb placement didn't put people too far away to outrun spew. He needed to be faced at a right-angle from the edge you were using, so the DPS on the mobs ass wouldn't bait the spew cast on top of the bomb-runners. He needed to be kept moving at a steady pace, to manage the shrinking room. Lastly, you needed to be able to snipe the outlying tiles out with Shockwave, to keep the edge of the room as smooth as a creepy analogy. As a cherry on top, he was pretty unwieldy, and positioning him took finesse. Knowing that, you could cut your raids attempt total in half.

This comes down to quick-assessment of the situation, and like I mentioned before, it's down to you. Different bosses have different needs. Some fights require quick movement, a quick turn and pounce yields best results. Other fights require gradual movement, where you're going to need to carefully keep yourself in range while moving the mob in a consistent crawl. Where the mobs are, and where they're facing at any given time will be huge factors.

Find out exactly what is optimal for the raid, and do it quickly.

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Step two is the actual execution of this, and I don't just mean doing it properly once. You need to be consistent. You need to be positioning mobs in a way that your raid can predict. Quickly build a habit-base for the way that you move mobs, to keep yourself from becoming another mechanic that the raid needs to react to. You can cause wipes instantly by changing the way you move a boss with no warning or for no reason

Be predictable.

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Next is a Wildstar Tank specific thing. You need to limit your movement because of telegraphed heals. If there's no reason for you to move, don't. There are some telegraphs I intentionally stand in, because I know that to avoid a 4k redzone, I will sometimes dodge a 8k heal. I have better survivability by making the lives of my healers easy than I do by perfectly min/maxing my damage taken. Keep in mind that healers are having to factor in latency and movement-delay, which is even worse in raids than it is in BGs. If you thought landing a Charged Shot in PvP was annoying, imagine when your friendly Tank starts pulling the same crap to you in raids.

Of course, this is situational. There aren't many telegraphs that do low enough damage to be worth intentionally eating, but GA has most of them. Single Circles on Kuralak, Plusses on Prototypes, etc. Mostly though, it's about not moving when shit hits the fan. A lot of people start moving for no reason when they start getting dumpstered out of sheer panic. It's a decent trait in DPS, but in a Tank, it can be fatal.

Serve your healers, stand the fuck still.

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After that is Taunt. There are a huge number of raid damage mechanics that can be mitigated by 25% by Taunt. Check the logs, find out if the damage source of said damaging ability is your mob. If it is, start blanket taunting it for mitigation.

Best example is Purge on System Daemons. An untaunted purge can be a 2-shot without a Taunt. A taunted purge, is only 3-shot. It raises the tolerance for mistakes through the roof. What was a temperamental and dangerous mechanic becomes slow and manageable. There are several fights made dramatically easier through a taunt-rotation, too. If called for, set it up with your co-tanks.

You have a huge amount of control over the raids survival. Oddly enough, the guy who you have the least control over whether he lives or dies is you. Innate is our only true defensive cooldown, and it's best used rotationally. Your only true 'oh shit' buttons are Health Pot and Gadget if you run a defensive one. But assuming your healer isn't a complete idiot, you shouldn't have to worry about it. Last Stand will carry you through unlucky situations, and you mitigate enough that your time-to-live will feel like an eternity.

I am reasonably sure you were a bit sleepy when you wrote this:"Once you've got full Ability Points, you'll want Whiplash 8, Prep 8 and you can choose between Bloodthirst 8/Nano Virus 8/Nano Virus 4/Razor Storm 4/Steadfast 4."

Also, you don't like exanite weaponry for your weapon?

Specifically what one of the threat meters do you use? Since this drop I've tried both, and they both seem to sometimes just flip out, freeze and show nothing mid fight. It's super annoying and I've never had this issue with either one of them before.

Also, thanks for the guide, now I can shove it up some ppls faces who likes to argue with me about things they shouldn't. :p

Thank God you still think Nanofield is trash, and I'm not losing my mind. I keep seeing people trying to sell it to new stalker tanks, and I want to shake them! xD

Thank you, also, for the clarification on shields. I haven't gotten to test with a 25% one yet, so I wasn't sure if it was better (currently most commonly using 62% with 5 sec reboot. I see a LOT of reboots). It makes sense to try different ones on different fights.

What do you think about the tanking runes for weapons that drop from dungeons? I have found one that does an armor increase of over 400 for 5 sec with each hit you do (doesn't stack). There is also the KV one (5% damage reduction for 5 sec + extra threat gen, but only every 30 sec), but I feel the 30 sec cooldown is too long to be really useful.

Shrii wrote:Specifically what one of the threat meters do you use? Since this drop I've tried both, and they both seem to sometimes just flip out, freeze and show nothing mid fight. It's super annoying and I've never had this issue with either one of them before.

I have found Threatmeter still to be the most generally useful threatmeter out there. However, the best thing ever are those Minimalist Nameplates. I can tell in a quick glance what I do and don't have threat on, and it's made my tanking life about a million times easier.

Shrii wrote:Specifically what one of the threat meters do you use? Since this drop I've tried both, and they both seem to sometimes just flip out, freeze and show nothing mid fight. It's super annoying and I've never had this issue with either one of them before.

I have found Threatmeter still to be the most generally useful threatmeter out there. However, the best thing ever are those Minimalist Nameplates. I can tell in a quick glance what I do and don't have threat on, and it's made my tanking life about a million times easier.

Right, I just prefer knowing before I lose threat so I can prevent it from happening at all. My threat meter freezing and not showing anything at all does not help with this.

One more questions re: shields and medics. My medics aren't running Shield Surge anymore. They are running protective surge with overflow. Does that affect what kind of shield you want? You said ignore the low mit/fast reboot if you have medic healers, but does that still apply if they've dropped shield surge?

I see in your medic's heal guide that they still have SS on the LAS. Mine tell me it's just not worth it due to it's high focus cost and the ability to gain shields with the amp + runes. Thoughts?

I am reasonably sure you were a bit sleepy when you wrote this:"Once you've got full Ability Points, you'll want Whiplash 8, Prep 8 and you can choose between Bloodthirst 8/Nano Virus 8/Nano Virus 4/Razor Storm 4/Steadfast 4."

Fixed. I appreciate the find, I'm so bad at proofing.

Also, you don't like exanite weaponry for your weapon?

Still doing analysis on a few Fusions. Which one is Exanite Weaponry though? I can't recall it by name.

Specifically what one of the threat meters do you use? Since this drop I've tried both, and they both seem to sometimes just flip out, freeze and show nothing mid fight. It's super annoying and I've never had this issue with either one of them before.

I actually use a section of a really old addon called XPS. I don't think there's a working version around anymore though.

What do you think about the tanking runes for weapons that drop from dungeons? I have found one that does an armor increase of over 400 for 5 sec with each hit you do (doesn't stack). There is also the KV one (5% damage reduction for 5 sec + extra threat gen, but only every 30 sec), but I feel the 30 sec cooldown is too long to be really usefu

Still toying around with what's best. Thinking about avoiding Weapon Fusions in general, if my threat is a non-issue.

One more questions re: shields and medics. My medics aren't running Shield Surge anymore. They are running protective surge with overflow. Does that affect what kind of shield you want? You said ignore the low mit/fast reboot if you have medic healers, but does that still apply if they've dropped shield surge?

I see in your medic's heal guide that they still have SS on the LAS. Mine tell me it's just not worth it due to it's high focus cost and the ability to gain shields with the amp + runes. Thoughts?

Yeah, not running Shield Surge seems to be pretty viable right now. If they're not, just treat them like any other healer, and run a Fast Recharge shield. Bandwidth Spikers is the best 120 out there, I'm not sure what its GA equivalent is.

Exanite weaponry is basically the same as someone linked a picture of, but gives 600 strikethrough instead.I basically put it in before I looked at all the other ones and have been hesitating taking it out cause I really don't know if anything else is worth putting there.Does siphon actually make a noticeable difference (doesn't it scale off AP?), or is it just cause you should have something there and that seems best?

Thank you for your hard work in putting this together and updating it. It has been an immense help for someone new to Wildstar.

Fraya wrote:Skills that are shit:Nano Field

Could you comment further on why you think so? On paper the % damage reduction seems very strong (with consideration to how often it would come up with Waller, potentially with reflexive nano skin as well?). Is there something about how Nano Field works in reality (mechanically) that makes it unappealing, or is it just simply worse than Frenzy (statistically)? Would love to hear your thoughts on whether or not there exists a Nano Field build worth consideration especially with "survival [being a] much larger concern."

-Taunt/ intimidate logicIf someone else is higher on threat than me, and i use TAUNT to become to target, and then i use INTIMIDATE.. according to your logic i should be copying my own threat?

-Speed fusion in boots.Currently i'm running no fusion in my boots. Do you really think it's worth it, seeing as you also said: stand still as much as possible for your healers?

-sp regenIf you don't take punish/ NV, do you have enough SP regen to keep casting frenzy constantly?Or do you still take punish? (you mentioned potentially dropping it but not sure if you have/can)

-deflectI feel that stalker tanks are quite dependent on getting deflects to keep up our survivability & threat, which is why i runed it up to 25% base deflect. (frenzy will bring me up to 35.5%ish)

-amp spikeI'm a fan of amp spike (from from a design p.o.v. but whatever) in this meta since we have so few defensive cooldowns.I have it on T4 because it lowers the cooldown to 44 seconds and T8 furor almost cuts that in half. On top of that it also increases healing received by 30% which helps in those oh-shit moments when you are casting it anyway.

-Taunt/ intimidate logicIf someone else is higher on threat than me, and i use TAUNT to become to target, and then i use INTIMIDATE.. according to your logic i should be copying my own threat?

-Speed fusion in boots.Currently i'm running no fusion in my boots. Do you really think it's worth it, seeing as you also said: stand still as much as possible for your healers?

-sp regenIf you don't take punish/ NV, do you have enough SP regen to keep casting frenzy constantly?Or do you still take punish? (you mentioned potentially dropping it but not sure if you have/can)

-deflectI feel that stalker tanks are quite dependent on getting deflects to keep up our survivability & threat, which is why i runed it up to 25% base deflect. (frenzy will bring me up to 35.5%ish)

-amp spikeI'm a fan of amp spike (from from a design p.o.v. but whatever) in this meta since we have so few defensive cooldowns.I have it on T4 because it lowers the cooldown to 44 seconds and T8 furor almost cuts that in half. On top of that it also increases healing received by 30% which helps in those oh-shit moments when you are casting it anyway.

Taunt / Intim - you can intim your own taunt its fine, you will match top threat not gain threat equal to who has threat so you can intim mid taunt and be fine.

Speed Fusion - he said to not move when inc dmg isnt worth dodging the tele and potentially your healer's heal. but you need to move bosses and when you do you need to move fast. examples, SD, Fire/Water, Air/Earth, Air/Life and a bunch others. when you dont ahve to move dont move make it easier for healers, dont dodge a 5k tele, do dodge a 30k tele haha.

SP Regen - i havent gotten full set yet so idk about this one but i trust fraya.

Deflect - with defiance / Alleviation you should have around 21-22% base deflect so 2-3% less than what you have. deflect isnt as huge a deal as it was because its harder to get it consistently. just keep those runes in Armor/HP/Crit Mit let your steadfasts do the deflecting for you.

SP Regen - The recent change to Enabler is making it look like Punish can be dropped. I only had 1 week of real-world testing though, so I can't be completely sure. The only real risk is that when you run out of SP it creates a pretty brutal feedback loop that keeps you out of SP.

AMP Spike - I haven't run it tiered up yet, don't really have the ability to now that I'm running Bloodthirst 8. It's still okay at base though, I'm probably going to be running it more if I can keep my SP stable without Punish.

Fusions: If Enrage is rolling because of constant damage, Enrage is more. If it's falling off, Siphon is more. IDK why you'd be comparing them though. Siphon is a Weapon Fusion, Enrage is a Glove.

Worth mentioning that Venom is now more TPS than Siphon.

Boost vs. Counter: Boost is considerably better than Counter. I am not a fan of Counter. On most boss fights you only deflect around once every 10 seconds. These are bosses that only average a swing every 3-4 seconds (their swing timer is 2.0, but casting makes Wildstar bosses lose their minds). So you're looking at one proc every 20 seconds on Counter, for an uptime of 30%, which is pretty pathetic for 8% Glance and 15% Threat.

Also worth mentioning on Counter, I can't be certain how the Threat% modifier is working. Some instances of Threat% add, and some multiply. If it's additive, the true value would be cut in half or more. That said, I have no idea what it is. It's very possible to test this though.

Now that new shields with the new specials are out, it looks like they really want the high mit shield to be the "tanky" one. What are your thoughts on the new shield specials and how they affect our picks as tanks?